"Mostly, yes," she replies, laughing bitterly, "apart from nobility usually coming with inheritable formal titles and slavery. Which is why I say they basically reimplemented nobility. Made the new system as much like the old system as they could, and did a damned fine job of it."

Lily closes her eyes and hums softly, half-remembering one of Sable's tunes from a few minutes ago. 

Sable's expression softens into a gentle smile, and she soars on, resuming her own melodies if Lily falls silent.

Eventually...

"... And in this world, what was your life like?"

A quietly weary breath, and a nod. "I lived alone in a slowly-rotting house. I worked a tedious job, helping the workers of a technology company use tools they didn't understand — despite those tools being fundamental to their jobs — and getting paid barely enough to cover food and rent despite my understanding the relevant technologies better than all the workers I was helping. I lived in a body I loathed, in a province that did not support people who wanted to change their form. Even if I'd lived somewhere that had the option, we didn't have the technology to do any better than a partial change over the course of years, with surgical intervention. I had a decade or so's worth of educational debt."

She laughs bitterly, "And the country I lived in was one of the more prosperous ones."

"... I don't understand, but I do. It's strange."

"Heh. That's about how I felt for the entirety of my first week. Would love to hear more, if you'd like to expand on what does and doesn't make sense."

"It's people, isn't it. People are always the problem."

"Yep, it's people. Specifically it's powerful people feeding everyone else lies about how it has to be that way, how hierarchy and oppression are the only viable system. Sure they pretty it up, call it something else, but at the end of the day it's people holding power over people, and people who don't have much power defending the system in the vain hope that one day they will."

"I don't think it's so much about them defending the system so much as not knowing how to work outside it... I'm lucky for even knowing how to read." 

Sable tuts and nods. "At this tech level, and with these sorts of governments, ignorance tends to be very common, and literacy very rare. Where I came from, literacy and information were much more widespread. Thus there had to be much more effort put into convincing people not to buck the system, rather than counting on their ignorance to prevent them."

"I see..."

She falls slient again.

Back to singing, then, until Lily's collected her thoughts and has more she wants to discuss.

"... What do you think my story is?"

"Like... my attempt at filling in the blanks in what I know of your story so far, or my sense of where your story goes from here?"

"The first."

She hums thoughtfully and nods. "You're a living doll — I could tell from the porcelain — which means your creation was complicated and expensive. Not many people have the skill, and some of those that do have it accept commissions. Your mention of being stuck in the same two rooms suggests you spent a long time being held captive. Your comparative inexperience suggests your captivity was at the hands of either your creator or commissioner, who didn't provide you with much in way of opportunities for growth or enrichment. Kamryn's mention of 'that man' in that tone of voice and that context implies whoever it was sexually abused you. The need to get you out of Bell altogether suggests 'that man' has power and status, which implies noble commissioner rather than creator."

A headshake and a sigh. "All together, that suggests you were commissioned by a petty lord who didn't understand what he'd bought, didn't understand the responsibility involved with causing a person to be brought into existence, and thought you'd just exist for the sake of his needs, especially his desires for sex and companionship. He kept you prisoner in a 'gilded cage' — idiom from home for a very lovely prison — and did not expect you to grow beyond his understanding. You studied, you left, you studied more, you had some self-discovery, and then the opportunity to get further away presented itself. You've lived your entire life defined by other people's expectations and desires, even if they've thought those desires were in your best interest. You've never in your life known someone whose very nature demands she care about anyone she meets but also fuck off if she's asked to. You've got unprecedented opportunities ahead of you, and while you're nervous about being able to seize them well enough, you're excited for the chance to truly be your own person and explore your own desires, finally out from under as many expectations as you can manage."

"... It's written all over me, huh."

"That, and narrative is kinda my thing," she says with a laugh. "I mean, I'm made of ink, for the gods' sake. I really enjoy trying to understand people's stories, how and why they are who they are, and what they want their stories to become. But yeah, yours is pretty obvious, if one actually pays enough attention. I'm impressed with you for escaping as well as you have. I've known people who did worse with a better shot."

"I got lucky. Amira did the hard part for me, more or less. But... I still know almost nothing about... I guess "the real world." Not that what happened to me was in any sense less real, but..."

"But it was a controlled environment, not reflective of the world you're claiming a life in now, and so some of your experiences don't generalize well. Yeah, that makes sense."

"It was easier, in some ways. I didn't have to worry about shelter for the night or what other people might think of me or having the essentials... I had to work less..."

"Mhm, easier, as long as you didn't mind an entitled fool who thought he owned you and could keep you in the cage of his expectations. Yep. Easier," she says, voice dripping with venom for people like him.

"Yeah, there will be challenges with this new life, but personally I find this sort of thing very worth it, and I think you can rise to the challenge."

"I hope so." 

She presses back against Sable. "Amira meant well too, but..."